


Replacements

by Nautilusopus



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Clones, Gen, Heavy Angst, Post-Series, a lot of crying and a lot of hugging, and very little of it healthy, cloud working out a lot of Issues, dirge and crisis core still not canon, point this boy at a wall because someone's projecting, proxy yelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 01:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15741063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nautilusopus/pseuds/Nautilusopus
Summary: Cloud goes digging in Nibelheim and finds more than he was ready to.





	Replacements

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday Cloud! Because August 19th is the TRUE OG canon birthday because I am STUBBORN AND SET IN MY WAYS. 
> 
> Thank you so much to deathrebirthsenshi, who beta'd this on extremely short notice because I literally planned out and typed up this thing in the span of 6 hours when I remembered it was the 19th and he was the only person online. 
> 
> Yes, I _am_ an asshole. But that's why you love me.

Cloud wasn't meant to find the others.

He hadn't even been looking for them, either -- he'd wanted his dog tags back. His and Zack's. He figured they'd long since been thrown out with some file or another, but it had been worth a shot, at least. He'd rummaged through the back room in Nibelheim Manor, sorting through old books and rotting papers and jars and bottles and less savoury tools besides coated in a thick layer of dust that saturated the air as he moved things about, making the room look like he was viewing it through some sort of strange, dreamlike haze. Not that being back here didn't feel like that already. It had been years, and the place still reeked of Hojo, and blood, and antiseptic, and fear. The dog tags, he'd hoped, would give him a piece of Zack that wasn't muddied by years of pain or grief. If he could find them, anyway.

He'd kicked aside the pile of books more out of frustration than anything else -- they were long gone, and he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up that they would be here anyway -- and was met with a strange, musty draft from what he'd assumed was an unused, forgotten corner. He peered a bit further in and found a narrow tunnel, the walls carved into the bedrock of the mountain from the looks of it. The air inside smelled stale, and behind it was the unmistakable scent of death.

Cloud felt the hair on his arms stand on end. Should he remember this room? Maybe, maybe not. He hadn't exactly been cognisant of his surroundings for much of his time here, after all.

His sword wouldn't be much use in a hallway that narrow, and instead he called forth the magic he hadn't had to use in months, the air around them chilling even further as tiny, razor-sharp slivers of ice began to form and float gently between his fingertips, stirred by a nonexistent wind. Nothing that he could hear reacted to the current he'd just created, or the sound his boots made as he tread as softly as he could down the stone corridor. Ahead, it seemed to open to a larger room, where he could faintly hear the hum of electronics behind them. Still running, after all these years?

Cloud turned the corner and barely managed to choke back a scream as he was met with his own face.

After recovering from the initial shock, he actually looked at what was in front of him, and found himself reaching for his sword now that there was actually room to draw it. The walls were lined with several glass tubes, about half of which were occupied by a body. Every last one was nearly identical to Cloud himself -- a few details were different, like how the nose wasn't as crooked from when he'd gotten it broken, or how thin they all looked, but there was no mistaking the shape of the jaw, the unmanageable hair, the smaller build. Clones. True clones, and not just hollowed out vessels meant for someone else's will they way he had been. His own stupid face stared vacantly back at him from the inside of the tubes, as though daring him to say something in return, like he hadn't...

Cloud felt bile rise up in the back of his throat. If he'd had any thoughts about not burning this building to the ground because of what it represented, they were certainly gone now. He turned to the opposite wall, to see if there was some sort of switch he could use to kill them all faster, and he nearly felt his legs give out beneath him.

Opposite the row of his own clones, they'd also made some of Zack.

Not as many were missing from the rows of twenty-five. There were nineteen clones left to Cloud's ten. Zack was missing six, Cloud more than half... something bothered him about that number. He warily made his way down the hall, expecting one of them to move, but they remained inert as he approached the gurney at the end of the room.

Six and fifteen, he realised -- the number of times they'd needed organ transplants, or very nearly. You could get more than one set of organs out of someone, after all, and it was still so hard to remember it all clearly. Often multiple systems failed simultaneously due to Hojo's machinations. Zack's lungs had shut down once during an ill-advised experiment to add, from what Cloud could guess, some sort of gills. Three different times Cloud had needed an entirely new heart, as Hojo quite literally ran him ragged in an effort to get him to match the physical prowess of someone two years his senior and a head taller than him with significantly more training to boot. And both of them had gone through a decent amount of kidneys.

Cloud had always wondered who they were getting these organs from, but had never been able to see who they'd been taking them from as he'd been strapped to the table. Now he knew.

He looked up from the table into Zack's eyes. It really was remarkable, the way it looked like him. Was he imagining how clear his gaze was, the way he always seemed to be laughing at something even with a straight face?

Could he see him right now?

 _Zack is dead,_ he scolded himself. _This is just a bunch of meat shaped like him. You're not gonna bring him back just by..._

Still, his eyes drifted towards the console behind the gurney. There were a series of buttons corresponding to each of the pods. He approached the console and traced his fingers down the columns of them, trying to match one of the buttons to the tube at the end of the line. He froze above the one marked **7A,** his hand trembling.

He swallowed, steeled himself, and pressed the button.

Something loud clanged in the walls as the fluid began draining from the cylinder, and he hurried over to it, watching as Zack's -- as the clone's weight slowly settled against the glass. A bit of the fluid it had been soaking in dribbled out of its mouth and nose, but otherwise it didn't react to the sudden change in its surroundings.

Then the glass retreated into the floor, and it flopped out onto the ground and remained there.

Cloud knelt next to it, still shaking somewhat, as he carefully helped it into a sitting position.

"Can -- can you hear me?" he asked.

The clone did not reply.

"I -- I came back for you. Can you understand what I'm saying?"

Silence.

"...Zack?"

He waited, praying for a finger to twitch, the eyes to move, anything that might have indicated it was anything other than a shell. Nothing.

Of course it wouldn't work. Fucking moron. Hojo had made these for organs, not social interaction. Who knew if they even _had_ brains? Logically, it shouldn't have any sort of brain activity going on if it had spent its entire life in here, only grown for the sake of its more useful organs.

He continued to kneel there anyway. The clone was still propped up against him. The brackish-smelling fluid had soaked into his clothes from its skin, but now he was wet enough to feel the warmth from its body as well. He slowly pulled it a bit closer. It was still taller than Cloud was, and it -- gods, it still smelled like him. His breath caught.

Maybe -- maybe it just had mako poisoning, or brain damage, the way he had. Maybe it just didn't know how to talk, since it had spent its whole life in a tank. Zack hadn't given up on Cloud even when he would have been well within his rights to. So Cloud shouldn't give up on...

...on Zack. It was Zack. He was sure of it.

"Come on," said Cloud. "I've got food back at camp."

He picked up Zack, marvelling at how light he was. He couldn't have weighed as much as his swords, he realised, and those felt light to him as well. The last time he'd been this close to Zack, though, he'd been sixteen and barely a hundred pounds soaking wet. He supposed he'd always assumed Zack was so much bigger.

He got halfway up the stairs before remembering that Zack was completely drenched and naked, and even though it was spring, Nibelheim was still Nibelheim. He'd freeze on the way back. He'd need clothes first.

A quick bit of rummaging revealed some spare surgical scrubs for the doctors. The pale blue colour and the texture of the cloth brought on another wave of nausea, but he could buy real clothes for Zack later.

Later. There would be a later. How would he explain this to the rest of his family?

He had a little time. He'd told them he'd be in Nibelheim anyway, and why. They wouldn't question it as long as he called every now and then. There was no one else around to see what he'd been getting up to, either. After Shinra had collapsed, there had been no one left to pay the actors to continue pretending that Nibelheim had never burned, and the whole town had just gotten up and moved back to the eastern continent. Cloud had the run of the whole town as a result. He'd been staying in "Tifa's house" the last couple days. It was nicer than "his", and there was no point denying himself that luxury if he had to stay in this mockery of a shithole anyway. And besides that... he still wasn't really ready to look at "his own" house again either.

He propped up Zack against the wall by the bed he'd claimed as his own and sat down next to him.

"I really missed you, you know."

Zack stared blankly at the bed as his head tipped forward.

"I -- a lot has changed. I... I met a lot of really great people," he continued. "Maybe... when you're better, I'll introduce you. You met Tifa, right? Turns out, I didn't blow it after all, like -- like I thought. We live together now. She -- she's really great. I think we’re dating, maybe, but I’m kind of afraid to ask so maybe we’re not. I know you guys got off on the wrong foot, but... I think you'd really get along."

He took a deep breath, scanning Zack's face for any sign of a reaction. Nothing so far.

Patience. He had to be patient. Zack had stuck with him for four months in this state. He could wait longer than that.

"I..." he swallowed nervously. He'd thought about this conversation a lot, but never actually had been in a position to have it. But he deserved to know. He deserved it. "...I met Aeris," he continued. "That girlfriend you never wanted to talk about. S-She... she's really something. She --"

_Thought you ran off with some other girl. Dated me because she moved on thinking you were either KIA somewhere or cheating on her. And now we're not dating because she died because Sephiroth murdered her because she was the only threat to his plan to kill fucking everyone, which we didn't even manage to stop when I threw him into the reactor and got us consigned to five years of hell which wound up getting you killed. Midgar is gone. Millions of people are dead. It's mostly my fault. Also I think you might've been complicit in or even responsible for the murder of my best friend's mother in Wutai and the state that country was in in general, and I never ever want to know what you did when you were over there so I can keep liking you. We did terrible things to the people in the slums. Shinra's gone now. Everyone hates it. I hate it too. You had to have known what it was, everyone knew. You were gonna be a mercenary, and if Tifa hadn't picked me up who knows what I'd have done. What am I even supposed to say to you now?_

Zack Fair, Soldier First Class. The phrase left a bitter taste in his mouth now, the words he was biting back prickling on the tip of his tongue. But --

What if Zack hated him? He couldn't, right? He couldn't take that chance. He'd just gotten him back, he couldn't risk losing him again.

"...has a really great flower garden," he finished. "Maybe we can go see it. Barret -- that's one of my other friends, I've got like ten now, you'd like him too -- he and his kid, they added a lot to it, too. Marlene -- his daughter, I mean, she's eight now. She mostly lives in Corel, but she visits sometimes to hang out with Denzel. Denzel -- I mean, I guess he lives with us too. We're... I mean, it's maybe not what you'd normally think of, but... we're a real family now. W-we're --"

He could almost believe Zack was staring at his hand, and not the bedsheet beside it. He curled his fingers through Zack's, and remembered what it was like to have them squeeze back, alone and cold in a cell in the moments they'd have before the world dragged him away again.

"We're so glad to have you back."

 

* * *

 

Something was wrong. Cloud realised it the second he woke up and felt his foot brush against clammy skin next to him. He bolted upright in bed and turned to face Zack, whose eyes were as empty as they had been yesterday.

Emptier.

Cloud frantically cradled the body to his chest, trying his best to ignore the smell of death that was already leeching into his clothes, or the way that it continued to slowly cool no matter how tightly he held it, how hard he pushed a healing spell that wouldn't take, how desperately he pleaded to it to just stay here, just for another minute, please, please, _please_ \--

His phone rang. Tifa, calling to make sure he was okay. He'd forgotten to call last night.

He opened his phone with trembling hands, forcing down tears that continued silently slipping out of his eyes regardless.

_"Hey! Just making sure you got out of bed. Any closer?"_

"N-No. Just gotta keep looking." The body still lay heavy and cold against his shoulder. He forced himself not to look.

_"...Are you okay? Did something happen?"_

"No. Everything's fine."

 _"I know it must be really hard to go back to all that,"_ she said gently. _"If you want, I can come up there with you."_

"I'm okay," said Cloud, struggling to keep his voice steady. "It's... it's important that I do this alone."

 _"Alright,"_ said Tifa, clearly unconvinced. _"But if you need someone to talk to... I mean, Cid's a few hours away at most. You know he'd stop by if you asked."_

"I know," he said. "I'm okay, though. Take care."

_"You too."_

He'd have to do something with the body. He couldn't leave it here, but...

No. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe it would help to do it himself. That was always something else he'd regretted.

He dug the grave behind his old house. There were still traces of ash in the dirt, and here he'd been, practically trampling all over his mother's corpse. It was fitting, that it had wound up like this. He'd wrapped the body in the sheet they'd been on, and it was so strange to think that it was Zack under there. Cloud had buried his share of bodies during the cleanup process after Meteor had near-hit. They all looked the same once you wrapped them in the sheet, though.

But... it wasn't really Zack under there, was it? Zack was dead. Zack had died years ago.

But the rest of those clones weren't.

He hurriedly packed the dirt over the top of the grave and immediately took off toward the mansion again. He'd do better this time. Maybe he'd just been malnourished? That could have been it. He had a vague memory of Zack spitting chewed food right into his mouth. If Zack could do that for him, he could do that for Zack.

He was faster to recover 8A's body this time, huddling it to himself to keep it warm. He'd forgotten to get clothes again -- more scrubs it was. He rushed home with Zack -- still so light, now that he was strong enough to carry him -- and immediately set about chewing some of the dried fruit and meat he'd taken from the abandoned general store. Getting Zack to actually swallow it was another challenge. Birds just regurgitated it right down their throats, didn't they? That felt a bit cruel, though. Eventually, he was fairly confident he'd managed to get him to swallow at least half of what he'd chewed up for him.

Clothes were next. Whoever they'd gotten to replace Mayor Lockhart was thankfully taller than Cloud himself was, and he finally got to ditch the scrubs in favour of something an actual person would wear.

He didn't let go of Zack for the rest of the day. It was hard keeping up constant chatter for him, and his throat was sore within hours. He had a lot to talk about, at least. He spent a while telling him about Yuffie and her new flat in Junon, and how she'd introduced him to some of her friends, and they'd tried to teach him to use chopsticks but he just kept breaking them, but he was too full of rice and fish and some sort of seasoned radish and fancy Wutaian booze by the end to care. Could he count those ones as friends? He wasn't sure, but Yuffie said they seemed interested in him, for one reason or another. Maybe. That was maybe twelve or thirteen friends he had now.

He scanned Zack's face for any sign that he was impressed, or interested, or maybe even bored by the whole thing.

Nothing.

He was still just as warm as the real Zack was, but his pulse was so slow and thready. He held him close that night as well, hoping desperately that maybe he'd done it right this time, that any second now Zack was going to wake up and go back to laughing and smiling and asking him to tell him more about the bar they'd spent the day at, even as his breathing grew weaker and weaker.

This time Cloud was awake when it stopped altogether.

 

* * *

 

He remembered to bring a towel and clothes this time, as he opened 9A's cylinder and began dressing him. Solid food was the problem, he'd reasoned. Of course it couldn't digest something like that, if it had never eaten before. He stayed in the lab a bit longer this time, trying to coax more of the strange fluid into it -- into Zack's mouth before realising his stomach was probably full of the stuff anyway. But it would work out better this time. He was sure of it.

He lasted longer as he spoke this time, about how they'd found this old Turk named Vincent -- Zack had probably heard of him, maybe -- and how he'd been teaching Cloud to pick locks, and Cloud had been teaching him to use a cell phone, and Tifa had been teaching them both how to send texts and leave voicemails without it sounding rude and passive-aggressive. It was harder than it looked. Zack was always a natural at it, though.

"What kind of phone should we get you?" he asked. "Tifa's paying for mine right now, but I could pick up a few extra jobs to help pay for one. My room's got a little space in it for a bedroll. No offense, but we definitely wouldn't both fit on my bed. You're kind of a blanket hog."

He looked up, puzzled that Zack hadn't responded, before remembering why.

He sighed, checking his own phone, and realised he'd missed a call from Tifa hours ago. He sent her a quick text by way of apology: _Sorry, left my phone. Doing fine. Can't wait to see you again._

And then they'd finally all be together, the whole family. Maybe Shinra had made backups for Aeris in Midgar somewhere, too. Hojo had had her and Ifalna at one point, after all. Maybe she was alive somewhere. Maybe Jessie was, and Wedge, and Biggs. Maybe they could all be okay.

Maybe there was even one of Ma somewhere.

That's what he kept telling himself as he fell asleep that night, even as he woke up and found himself huddled against another corpse.

 

* * *

 

10A and 11A were already dead inside the tube, Cloud discovered as he drained them, so he opened 12A as well. It was exposure to the Nibelheim cold, probably. Better to just stay in here until he was strong enough to be moved.

He had so much more to talk about, and he was getting better at it. This time he told him about Reeve, who visited almost as often as Yuffie did, since he lived the closest to them all. Reeve was very particular about his coffee, and it was a point of contention between them that Cloud put as much milk in his as he did. Reeve accused him of not liking coffee, and just drinking it because he was. Cloud accused Reeve of not having taste buds anymore from all the cigarettes and coffee. And then Reeve had done something to his coffee behind the counter, some spices or something, and it had been the best thing he'd ever had. He was still uncertain whether or not he should admit it to Reeve so he could learn to make it himself. He could get so smug sometimes, especially when he was right. Which he often was.

"What do you think?" he asked Zack.

Zack didn't reply. He'd been dead for the last ten minutes.

 

* * *

 

13A and 14A both died within minutes of him opening their cylinders. He didn't know what he was doing wrong anymore. Maybe they had weak hearts. They'd never had to move before, after all, and here they were, reacting to sounds and smells and sights they'd never seen before. Still, the mako they'd been dosed with to match Cloud's and Zack's own blood content, as well as the virus infused into their genes, should have kept them going a little bit longer. Long enough to tell him something. To ask something. Anything.

The row of bodies behind his house kept getting longer. This time, he dug the next grave in advance.

 

* * *

 

15A lived two whole days.

Cloud had been practically attached to him the entire time, keeping him warm and fed. He'd gone back to trying dried meat, and there didn't seem to be that much of a difference. He stayed awake this time, all through the night, telling him about how Tifa had gotten him his earrings for his birthday, to match her ring. She'd taught him more than he realised about how to sit and do nothing and just appreciate someone else's presence, with nothing to say and nothing that needed to be said about how warm someone else could be against you. He'd learned a lot about little things, too -- she remembered he liked blueberries. He remembered she liked things so spicy it physically hurt to look at them. Little things like that felt so much bigger when you put it all together. He racked his brain to remember what kinds of things Zack had liked to eat, but it was all lost to the mako. No matter. He could ask him when he was feeling better.

The whole time, he kept squeezing Zack's hand so tightly he might've broken a finger if he'd been human, terrified of the moment his hands would go cold. He tried staying up a second night, to make sure, and in the end was awake for the moment he disappeared.

 

* * *

 

Cloud had been nigh-incoherent with exhaustion when he accidentally opened 16B.

He mashed the button again and again, but there was nothing to be done as the tank slowly continued to drain, lowering a perfect replica of his own body onto the floor of the lab. Cloud stood there, watching it spit up fluid, paralysed with fear. What if it looked at him? What if it moved? What if it got up and walked off and took his life and nobody noticed?

It couldn't do that if it was dead.

It didn't even struggle as he crushed its windpipe in his hands. A few involuntary thrashes in its death throes, but nothing that something really alive would have done. He felt a chill go up his spine as he looked at his -- not his, 16B's dead body, its face mirroring his own. So that's what he'd look like, if...

He tossed its remains off a cliff into the mountains. Spare replacement parts weren't worthy of a person burial. Not the way 16A was, when it quietly expired a few hours later. He'd been so distracted he hadn't even noticed Hojo had already cut into this one and taken something out.

 

* * *

 

17A, 18A, 19A, 20A, 21A, and 22A, all lasted a day apiece. He'd spent a few hours of 19A's day on the phone with Tifa, who was beyond alarmed that he'd been gone for so long, and another few hours still with Cid, who he had to convince not to come looking for him. He was pretty sure he hadn't actually convinced anyone, and he'd have to leave in a few days. He was running out of stories and time and bodies. He was getting behind on graves, too, and had to dump them all into a pit he'd dug out with no small amount of guilt, wrapped in sheets from neighbouring houses.

He had to get better. He had to. He was going to.

 

* * *

 

"I dated your girlfriend."

Zack -- 23A -- remained as impassive as ever. Cloud didn't care.

"Ex-girlfriend, I mean. I ate her out in a hotel room in Junon. I think she might've been involved with Tifa at some point, too. Never had time to ask and now I think it's in poor taste to, because she's fucking dead, because your best friend -- your _real_ best friend, the one you cared about -- killed her."

Zack didn't so much as blink. Cloud felt his fists clench.

"I know what you did in Wutai, too. We all do. Yuffie doesn't like to talk about it, but I'm not stupid. You were in Soldier, it's what Soldier was for. And -- I don't even know how much you liked _me_. Remember that time I -- I had Wind Chimes on, and you came in, and you laughed and said there was no way I was listening to that crap? Well, I fucking was. And I said I wasn't because you laughed at me -- _none_ of my friends laugh at me anymore! They're better than you!" He was screaming now, loud enough for the nobody in the empty houses all around them to hear. "They can think for them-fucking-selves, they don't drag me to bars to try and hook me up with strangers, or show me off in front of their friends, talking about how nice they were to -- to take me in, they -- they love me, did you love me? I don't -- I don't even know if -- if you -- you were a fucking asshole, and you still -- you still talked to me anyway --"

He kept tripping over words as his throat tightened more and more, sore from the month of talking.

"-- you -- you wouldn't have had to care, would you, if -- if you -- _you took everything from me!_ " he screamed. "Because you're a selfish fuck! And you took everything anyway, even though you had parents who -- who were alive, and loved you, and the job I always wanted, and friends that thought you were amazing, and a girlfriend that was -- that was so, so incredible, and you had all of that and -- and all I ever had was you."

He didn't remember when he'd started crying.

"You took everything..."

 

* * *

 

He held 24A to him and wept. Three days, he'd managed, but he could feel him growing weaker as the minutes ticked by.

"Please," he begged. "Please. You can't go yet. You can't go. Just stay a little longer. I promise -- I promise things will be better. I promise. We'll -- we'll go back home to Edge, and you'll meet everyone, and -- and we'll be happy -- please don't go --"

24A couldn't hear him like his. He didn't know why he bothered asking.

 

* * *

 

He did not set foot in the mansion, instead choosing to lay in bed, dreading what he knew he’d have to eventually do. 25A remained in the glass cylinder, still alive for the time being. Maybe he could just leave him there, and drop by to visit him. Never really awake, but alive, at least. It was better than nothing, wasn’t it?

Better than losing Zack nineteen more times, anyway.

His phone buzzed on the dresser next to him. He rolled over, the mattress sticking to his back now that he had long since run out of sheets, and answered it.

“Strife here.”

_“Cloud? Fucking shit, I thought you -- you’re not sick, are you? You know you can just go in for treatment, or -- I mean, if you already did, there are other options, you don’t have to --”_

The wave of guilt that hit him along with Tifa’s voice was almost physically painful. He hadn’t called since 19A had died, nearly a week ago. He should have been back by now, probably. Well, not “probably”. How long did it take to search some old archives for a couple dog tags?

“I’m okay,” he said. “Just been really busy.”

 _“You promised you’d call,”_ she said. _“Look, I talked to Cid, and he says he can make it out there tomorrow if it’s too much for you.”_

“It’s not…”

He sighed. There was still dirt under this fingernails from all the graves he’d dug for the bodies he’d retrieved from Hojo’s personal organ banks. They were replacement parts, weren’t they? This was what they were _for_.

“...maybe it is,” said Cloud. “It’s… rough, looking at some of these files.”

_“Do you want to talk about it?”_

“Maybe when I get back,” said Cloud. “I…”

He’d never really talked about what had happened in Nibelheim before. Would Tifa understand?

Did he?

Cloud pushed himself out of bed.

“Can I call you back in an hour?”

_“...If you actually call back, yes.”_

“I will. Just gotta take care of something real quick.” He moved his thumb to hang up, then paused. “Tifa?”

_“Yeah?”_

“...Thank you.”

 _“For what?”_ asked Tifa, still clearly alarmed.

“For listening.”

_“...You’re welcome. I’ll see you soon, okay?”_

“See you soon.”

He closed his phone and stuffed it in his pocket, then began a brisk jog down to Shinra Manor. He had to see, just one last time.

Zack’s face stared out from behind the glass at him, as empty as it had been in death as Cloud’s hand hovered over the button to open his tube. It was technically him in there, he knew. Right down to the DNA. Every last organ that Zack had had, the way that he’d had them, arranged in just the right order.

The things on the other side -- they were just parts. It was easier to tell himself that.

But if Zack was parts too, then he wasn’t really Zack.

He curled his hand away from the button and walked away. No need to add another hunk of rotting meat to the ground behind his house.

He shifted another pile of books to cover the entrance to the hallway. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do.

His foot clicked against something metallic as he headed out the door, and he looked down to make sure it wasn't the keys to Fenrir.

Under his boot were the chains of two sets of dog tags, the labels on them tarnished but still legible:

**STRIFE**  
**CLOUD**  
**08/19/36**  
**AB POS**  
**837-067-020**

**FAIR**  
**ZACK**  
**11/15/34**  
**O POS**  
**821-216-922**

Cloud stared at them for a moment, blinking back tears, then draped them over his neck.

Time to go. He’d spent entirely too long here as it was.

He felt strangely heavy as he hauled himself up the stairs and back to the dilapidated foyer. His throat was sore, and his arms ached from hauling bodies he shouldn’t have been hauling and digging graves he had no right to be digging at this day and age. He’d need to get some rest when he got home. Maybe he’d earned it.

Besides, he mused to himself as he stepped outside the mansion and the crisp Nibel air greeted him: he’d long since run out of stories.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think he definitely forgets to call back in an hour and earns himself a Serious Talk from Cid in the process.


End file.
